Why Espargaro faces Marquez with no fear at Honda

The 2021 rider market was always poised to be one of the most unpredictable with most contracts up for grabs at the end of the 2020 campaign. But there were few who had money on Pol Espargaro departing KTM to join Honda alongside Marc Marquez, whom HRC renewed for an unprecedented four years early in 2020.

When the dust had settled after the news, first revealed by Autosport, had broken, it didn't take long for reason and logic to take hold. The Honda is a difficult bike, requiring an aggressive riding style to extract the best from. In that respect, it wasn't that far removed from the KTM - though of course, when racing finally got underway the RC16 emerged as a much friendlier bike from previous years.

That made Espargaro a perfect fit for Honda. Now, in hindsight, it would be easy to question HRC's decision to move Alex Marquez out of the works outfit to LCR based on what we saw from the 2019 Moto2 champion in the second half of the season. But, with all the facts it had to hand, Honda's decision ultimately was the correct one. Not least when you consider Espargaro's history in grand prix racing.

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A world champion in Moto2 in 2013, Espargaro was no stranger to locking horns with Marquez in Moto2 and in the 125cc class. His time at Tech3 aboard the Yamaha from 2014 to 2016 (ironically replacing Cal Crutchlow, who lost his LCR seat as a result of Espargaro's arrival at the works Honda team) didn't produce the podiums it really ought to have.

But Espargaro was a solid campaigner, making him a prime pick for KTM for its fledgling project for 2017. And it's here where Espargaro was really moulded as a MotoGP rider.

KTM came into MotoGP totally blind. Though management talked a big game, stating its target was to win races by year five of the project, the mountain it had to summit was immense. The only bike on the grid running a steel trellis frame and WP suspension, it had to plough its own furrow instead of gleam ideas from the rest of the grid had it followed convention in terms of chassis and suspension set-up. This made year one particularly difficult, but KTM went from qualifying over three seconds off the pace in the opening round in Qatar to being just under a second shy of the pole time come the Valencia finale.

In the final nine races, Espargaro managed four top 10 results. A year later he would guide the RC16 through the pounding rain in Valencia to score a famous first MotoGP podium for himself and KTM. The struggles of his highly price-tagged team-mate Johann Zarco in 2019 further put Espargaro's talent into focus, as he consistently breached the top 10 on the bike, finishing all but one race in the points. His dedication to the project was absolute, Espargaro key in the development of the bike. Without his efforts, test rider Dani Pedrosa almost certainly wouldn't have been able to make the impact he has done since joining last year.

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"I reflect on a lot of work, a lot of patience from both sides, a lot of pain from big injuries and also from part of KTM not seeing the project shining at the beginning, which hurt quite a lot after spending a lot of budget trying to make this work," Espargaro tells Autosport when we sit down for a chat over Zoom ahead of his KTM swan song in Portugal. "But especially a lot of love in between both of us. Like, KTM seeing me giving my 1000% going through injuries, even riding the bike injured because I wanted to not let them down."

It goes without saying, then, KTM's banner year in 2020 in which it won three times courtesy of Brad Binder and Miguel Oliveira and achieved five other podiums and fifth in the standings thanks to Espargaro, wouldn't have been remotely possible without the Spaniard's toil. That his time with the Austrian marque ended without a victory still hasn't left a bitter taste in his mouth, the gravity of his achievements with KTM in four years satisfaction enough.

"We were dreaming to be in this position," he added. "We were dreaming all the time - not just myself, but all the crew, everyone. We were dreaming about being where we are now, fighting for the top five in the championship at the last race with five podiums, two pole positions. The end of this season was unreal.

"Also, the full season we have been fighting for the victory in the Czech Republic when Johann took us out [of second place]. But we could win, or we could be second. So, this is one podium more. Then in the first race in Austria, where the race was red flagged and I ran out of tyres, it could have been another podium. And these were two very real podiums where we could fight for the victory.

"For an athlete, a professional athlete that always wants to improve and always test themself, I feel this chapter of my career is an adventure as something to improve myself and at the same time discover within myself who you are, how fast you are. In the past many people, as I understand it, underrated me" Pol Espargaro

"So, it's two more places we could have finished on the podium. So, it means seven podiums with maybe one second and one first position, or two first positions. So, just unreal what we have achieved, what we could achieve and how the season has been, it's just crazy. It's amazing."

All of this coincided with Honda's worst season since it returned to the premier class full-time in 1982 following its aborted attempts to race the four-stroke NR500 at the end of the 70s and into the new decade. Marquez's broken arm at the Spanish GP was only one problem for HRC. The 2020 RC213V had a difficult pre-season and proved still to be a tough machine when racing got underway in July, the 2020 Michelin rear tyre construction playing a factor in this.

It wouldn't be until the ninth round in a wet French GP where Honda would register its first podium - a far cry from 18 races out of 19 it made it to the rostrum with Marquez in 2019. Marquez's absence forced HRC into trying to adapt the RC213V a little better to its current riders, with a raft of changes for rookie Alex Marquez at the post-San Marino GP test transforming its fortunes. The younger Marquez brother backed up his wet Le Mans success with another second in the Aragon GP.

RETRO: The clash which points to a rivalry reigniting in 2021

Inevitably, Espargaro's media debriefs during this time had him fielding repeated questions on if he was feeling regrets over his 2021 move. But, as he told Autosport, he's faced worse.

"Yeah, in the end - I will not tell you lies - it didn't bother me even one moment," he said of Honda's woes in 2020. "I started the KTM project in Qatar at 3.5 seconds off the first. So, we could make a bike work with four years from a bike that was not really working, nothing was working, trust me. It was a very difficult bike at the beginning.

"I mean Honda has been up and down throughout history, but always it's been there. Maybe this first year is not going to be good, but second year for sure the bike is going to be there. This happens in the competition world where manufacturers go better and go worse, also KTM was very bad and now it's very good."

And he is all too aware Honda knows exactly what he can bring to the party: "For sure, Honda took me not just because I'm fast, but also because I was able to create a group of people at KTM and make everyone work good and I was giving them correct info to develop a good bike and this is part of my job."

With all that said, many commentators and those on social media who believe themselves 'experts' think Espargaro is walking towards a slaughter. Marc Marquez isn't just 'another team-mate'. But this isn't something Espargaro is fearing - it's a challenge he is relishing, because to go up against the best of the current era on equal machinery is the ultimate adventure for an athlete: He's going to Honda to prove a point to himself, not to anyone else.

"It's the first time someone has asked me this question in this way and the way I was answering always, it's not about being scared, it's about discovering," Espargaro said when Autosport asked how much this challenge excited him.

"For an athlete, a professional athlete that always wants to improve and always test themself, I feel this chapter of my career is an adventure as something to improve myself and at the same time discover within myself who you are, how fast you are. In the past many people, as I understand it, underrated me because we were doing not good results with the KTM because the KTM was weak because it was the beginning of a project.

"But I really want to see myself and I want to see the people seeing myself on another bike that would mean I was able to be in the top six with the Yamaha, then now with the KTM I can be in the top five in the championship, and then I want to do the same with the Honda. This is going to show me that I'm not a bad rider and actually it's not really to show anybody what I can do, it's just to show myself, prove to myself if I'm able to be on the level of the best rider in the world."

And while Espargaro may not have come away from KTM with that elusive grand prix victory, he ends his time with the marque a "proper MotoGP" rider having been shaped by his experiences on the RC16.

"KTM is part of this," he concluded when Autosport asked if he could have gone to Honda without first going through what he has with KTM. "Now in one level, for sure riding on track, but also psychologically I'm at one level I've never been, [I've] matured. Now I can lose and I don't feel like a loser. I don't know how to explain it, because I feel that in KTM I have grown from a kid in this MotoGP world to a man.

"I mean Honda has been up and down throughout history, but always it's been there. Maybe this first year is not going to be good, but second year for sure the bike is going to be there" Pol Espargaro

"I have discovered many tools to use on the bike that if I were, for example, jumping from my first bike in MotoGP to HRC it would for me be impossible to adapt because many tools I'm using now I just discovered at KTM and they were building me, I was building with them this bike and I know every single piece of the bike what matters, how to touch the bike and how the electronics need set up.

"They taught me how to be a rider, actually. I was not a rider [before]. I was a man riding a bike, but I was not a proper MotoGP rider. They taught me how to do it and without this knowledge, for me it would be impossible to face the best rider in the world. I feel like a man now. It's so, so much different."

Undoubtedly, all being well regarding Marquez's recovery, Espargaro faces the toughest challenge of his racing career in 2021. But through his struggles at KTM, he has been moulded into a rider very much capable of going head-to-head with Marquez on the Honda and coming out on top...